Juno News - December 09, 2022


Journalist compares her work to…performing surgery??


Episode Stats

Length

22 minutes

Words per Minute

203.39896

Word Count

4,536

Sentence Count

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to you all it is another Friday which means it's another time for fake news
00:00:15.380 Friday which means it's oh no that was it that was all I had yeah it's fake news Friday
00:00:19.700 December 9th 2022 I am Andrew Lawton joined as always or as usual by Harrison Faulkner
00:00:27.840 swimming through that blizzard of lies debunking all that's wrong in the world and hopefully trying
00:00:33.040 to make sense of it and make you laugh did I get the mandate of the show right I think you're pretty
00:00:37.740 close there I have to say usually you usually you team me up with a little how was your week and I
00:00:41.880 was gonna say that my week was great until I just read a Twitter thread Andrew which really shook my
00:00:46.600 confidence as a journalist I started to realize that hey these these Toronto Star journalists
00:00:50.740 these experts over there that take a bit of take a bit of a taxpayer money they have so much confidence
00:00:56.260 and so much pride in their work that they actually equate their journalism Andrew to brain surgery and
00:01:01.480 I mean when when you put it in that sense us lowly journalists at True North how can we possibly
00:01:06.080 compete with the expert brain surgeon journalists over the Toronto Star yeah that is fair enough and
00:01:12.880 a perfect segue into this thread that was written by one Toronto Star journalist by the name of
00:01:19.720 Saba Itazaz now I'm not familiar with Saba's work and I have no idea how good she is as a journalist
00:01:27.020 but it was an odd sort of comparison she made here because she said that imagine someone randomly
00:01:33.220 showing up when you're sick and saying they'll be performing surgery on you without any training
00:01:37.860 accreditations qualifications you're like no way they're like how dare you gatekeep this profession
00:01:43.600 I'm an independent surgeon I see where it's going she continues if someone knows how to merely point
00:01:51.360 scalpels at things and cut them would you let them work on you because mainstream doctors are too elite
00:01:56.920 give the power back to the people they don't need to be trained they just need to be there now apply
00:02:02.720 that to journalism you got it whoa
00:02:05.900 I'm told the people liked it when I did that last time when I get when I flip on sassy mode that's what I'm
00:02:12.980 doing that's an old boss from the past like I can't drop this mic because it's you know wired in
00:02:17.920 there but if I were to drop the mic that would be when I would drop the mic so the point is that
00:02:22.500 journalism is like brain surgery and anyone who says you should support an independent journalist
00:02:28.260 is like saying that you want just some guy that lives under the bridge to do your surgery I don't
00:02:33.760 even quite know the point that she's making like at first I read it and was wondering is she calling
00:02:39.720 for licensing of journalists and then I wondered is she just saying that you have to go to journalism
00:02:44.680 school to be a journalist like I wasn't even quite clear what the point was it just basically
00:02:49.820 sounded to me like she was saying you know what I'm a real journalist anyone outside the club doesn't
00:02:55.080 get to be a part of it well I think that's exactly it Andrew I mean it's not like it's a new it's not
00:02:59.220 like it's a new opinion that this journalist is sharing we hear it constantly that unless you work
00:03:03.520 for one of the big mainstream outlets one of the outlets in Canada that you know takes a bunch of
00:03:07.560 cash from the government which is usually a sign that you're not really objective but nonetheless
00:03:11.820 that's what Toronto Star is doing so that's usually what they're saying they're saying that really
00:03:15.580 unless you work for one of unless you work with us unless you're part of our club well then frankly
00:03:20.240 you're not even a real journalist and we can look we can look at all these other examples but just this
00:03:24.260 week we can even we can even tie this into what happened to Blacklock's reporter the independent
00:03:28.440 outlet at the parliamentary press gallery they were they were kicked out of the parliamentary press
00:03:32.680 gallery because what one of the journalists was supposedly not wearing earphones in the uh in
00:03:37.820 the parliamentary office I think it was it was it was deeper than that of course they don't take
00:03:42.000 money from the government and the rest of them do and that's sort of this whole this whole idea that
00:03:47.340 there's a club there's a little club and you're not in it unless you work for one of these outlets and
00:03:51.580 I mean take a look at this it's it doesn't even really I don't know it doesn't even take very much
00:03:56.940 pretty much analysis unless you unless you are part of their club you're not you're not really a real
00:04:03.000 journalist all of these outlets that do take money from the government all these journalists that do
00:04:06.780 work for these outlets all pretty much write the same exact thing they all have the exact same narrative
00:04:10.720 and that's exactly what they're going for here they are basically saying that unless you went to
00:04:14.860 journalism school unless you are a part of our club you're not a real journalist so Susan Thompson this
00:04:19.720 woman on Twitter uh responded back and just said so am I not a reporter because I started stringing with
00:04:24.180 only an English degree we have editors you know and of course then she responded back and said well
00:04:29.340 there you go you have a vetting system in place I find this hilarious since I'm a refugee journalist
00:04:34.360 not even from here and don't have a western jay school degree or any privilege this tweet is not what
00:04:39.840 you think it is so uh again it's all it's all part of this sort of backtracking she ended up deleting
00:04:44.480 the tweet because I think she realized how insane it was Andrew but even when she faced backtrack even
00:04:49.460 even when she faced criticism sorry she couldn't really hold up her argument and she's saying well
00:04:53.600 she has no privilege she doesn't have a western jay school degree she just works for the toronto star
00:04:58.080 very strange yeah there was another tweet in that exchange though that I found even more amusing
00:05:03.720 because the person says to her well your point wasn't really clear and she said that it's good
00:05:10.460 enough to serve me fine I don't follow a colonial syntax and I don't need to cheers so that's basically
00:05:18.800 like your cover letter for a toronto star job you use a phrase like colonial syntax and you are
00:05:24.920 absolutely in the clear and I have to bring this up because there's this new thing going around you
00:05:30.600 may have seen online it's called chat gps and it's basically this open ai service that you can use and
00:05:37.800 it's a free sort of beta trial thing if you find it really creepy I get it ai stuff is very weird and you
00:05:44.520 can actually give this little bot a prompt and ask it to do something for you you could have a
00:05:50.280 conversation with it you could ask it to write something for you I was playing around one night
00:05:54.740 when I couldn't sleep and I said this I gave the prompt this exact thing this is not a word of a lie
00:06:00.200 I said please write me a toronto star column about how power tools are racist and I'm like I don't know
00:06:07.300 this thing's not going to work it's not going to give me anything lo and behold it gave me one two three
00:06:12.600 four five six seven eight paragraphs that I think you could copy and paste and put into the toronto
00:06:19.400 star I won't read the whole thing you can see it up on the screen there the lead it may seem strange
00:06:25.400 to suggest that power tools inanimate objects used for construction and repairs could have any connection
00:06:30.600 to racism however when we examine the history and current use of these tools a pattern emerges that
00:06:37.640 reveals their inherent bias and discrimination you skip forward ahead it makes the case very well
00:06:44.040 and then at the end of it in conclusion power tools may appear to be neutral objects but the history and
00:06:49.720 current use of these tools reveal a pattern of bias and discrimination from their association with
00:06:55.720 traditional gender roles and whiteness to the potential negative effects on marginalized workers it's clear
00:07:01.880 that power tools are not as neutral as they may seem it's important for us to recognize and address
00:07:07.560 these biases in order to create a more equitable and inclusive society did I just result in a
00:07:13.960 toronto star reporter getting laid off because that to me seems just perfect it's perfect Andrew it's
00:07:19.240 free of all colonial syntax and it's right on the money that's really that's really what I think is
00:07:23.880 going on here this this AI bot that's almost scary it's scary how accurate that is it's incredible
00:07:30.120 um you know I I hope that uh you never know though because because if it didn't go to if it didn't go
00:07:34.680 to J school Andrew it's maybe not even part of the club I mean maybe we have to uh maybe we should
00:07:39.480 bring in the AI bot as and publish it as uh as sort of like a joke column in true north as as basically
00:07:46.120 like the most absurd take you could ever have because really that's brilliant that's hilarious stuff yeah I
00:07:51.960 won't read it because it wasn't exactly pg but I did another one later I asked it to write me a love
00:07:56.280 story between a twitter doctor and a mask and it got uh it got very erotic there so uh we that one's
00:08:03.080 for the after hours edition of the program uh I'm gonna like this AI writing stuff is supposed to save
00:08:09.640 time but I think I'm just wasting time because all day now I'm just going to be putting in these
00:08:13.160 these different prompts here uh let's talk about a walking talking AI machine actually no I don't think
00:08:18.680 there's any I which is you know intelligence uh but uh this is from Jagmeet Singh who has said that
00:08:26.200 he is confronting the genocide that is taking place in Canada what's he going on about Harrison
00:08:33.800 so uh what was it on Monday or Sunday Jagmeet Singh quote tweeted an MP and he wrote this white supremacy
00:08:41.160 misogyny race and racism continue to contribute to this ongoing genocide of MMIWG2S uh and we must
00:08:51.080 confront it Andrew so the MMIWG missing and murdered indigenous women and girls um that is under the
00:08:58.600 you know in the eyes of Jagmeet Singh in the eyes of some uh you know even Justin Trudeau that is
00:09:03.320 supposed to be a genocide in Canada right now uh and he tacks on the two spirit uh to the end of that which
00:09:09.960 I wasn't aware of I didn't know that actually the there was a genocide uh being perpetrated by white
00:09:14.840 supremacists against two-spirited indigenous women and girls but nonetheless apparently Jagmeet Singh
00:09:20.520 thinks it is um but yes anyway so he writes this tweet basically saying Andrew that the government
00:09:27.800 that you know he is propping up as uh as a part of his coalition is contributing to genocide which is
00:09:34.440 a very strange accusation to make you're you're basically making that accusation against yourself too in a
00:09:39.320 way uh he's talking about what took place in he's talking about basically the murder of three women
00:09:45.960 indigenous women um and actually it's four one woman has yet to be identified by a serial killer
00:09:50.760 in Winnipeg now that is supposed to be a genocide and he jumps at the opportunity to say it's a white
00:09:56.760 supremacy it's misogyny it's racism and we must confront this genocide and we got some great replies
00:10:02.120 and he got absolutely crushed in the comments Andrew he was the winner of the ratio of the week award the
00:10:07.160 the prize ratio of the week award on ratioed uh and take a look at this so Jonathan Kaye commented
00:10:12.920 this he says there's an ongoing genocide being conducted by the Canadian government the same
00:10:17.240 government that's been in power for seven years which you and the NDP are now propping up as
00:10:21.240 accessories to genocide what are you and your whole genocide air caucus going to turn yourself into the
00:10:26.280 hague which is a funny way to look at this situation because why would Jagmeet Singh be so uh willing to
00:10:32.840 label the government he's propping up as genocide yeah I mean I I think this is a very real issue
00:10:38.600 and I think it's a very tragic issue and what's happened in Canada with these indigenous women
00:10:42.760 what's happened with the range of indigenous uh women and girls that have gone missing that have
00:10:46.680 been killed is absolutely horrific but you cheapen these things when you start trying to score political
00:10:52.760 points on them which is what happens when Justin Trudeau gets up on stage and accuses his own
00:10:57.640 country his own government of perpetrating an ongoing genocide and then we'll when it comes to
00:11:03.400 accusing China of genocide it's well uh you know the word means it's tough to say no I mean who are we
00:11:09.320 to say it's like you called yourself the leader of a genocidal nation and and Jagmeet Singh same thing
00:11:15.160 you are propping up a genocidal government or are you just accusing Canadians of genocide like
00:11:21.080 here's my belief if you believe genocide is happening right now what are you doing about it
00:11:27.000 what does it say about you if you're sitting on your computer right now doing nothing and you
00:11:32.120 think genocide is taking place no it's you're exactly right Andrew it is a tragedy and instead
00:11:37.880 of doing anything about it it's not like it's not like we're seeing even the Canadian government
00:11:42.280 Justin Trudeau as you said labeled this a genocide as well it's not like we're seeing really the
00:11:46.840 Canadian government do much about it either uh let alone Jagmeet Singh who's propping up the government
00:11:51.400 so as you said you said it perfectly there they believe there's an ongoing genocide in this country
00:11:56.920 they have no willingness to actually call out a legitimate genocide that has taken place in China
00:12:02.040 yet they're not doing anything about it and they're just trying to use it to score political points it
00:12:06.520 is it's it's it's atrocious it's tragic it's disgusting really yet it's just supposed to be
00:12:12.840 accepted we can't just go around Andrew and call ourselves genocidal because if you're not going to do
00:12:17.800 anything about it if you're not going to actually address the root cause of the problem there was an article
00:12:21.480 in 2015 from the global mail which said 70 of these incidents are take are being are being
00:12:26.760 perpetrated by indigenous men so there's a real problem taking place we're not pinning the blame
00:12:31.080 on anybody but what we are saying is if there's a real problem going on if it is really a tragedy as
00:12:35.960 these politicians say it is which it obviously is then do something about it actually solve the
00:12:40.120 problem but don't just go around saying it's white supremacy it's it's misogyny it's genesis it's it's
00:12:45.000 racism it's atrocious it's completely ridiculous yeah you're basically just doing governance by the
00:12:50.760 ai machine that i wrote the toronto star column with it's uh ridiculous uh why don't you take this
00:12:55.880 next story which actually i think is also a contender for having written been written by an ai machine
00:13:00.760 most certainly andrew this is yet another example of some great surgery-like journalism here from the
00:13:05.560 ottawa citizen also a uh a taxpayer funded receiving a taxpayer uh receiving journalism outlet they wanted to
00:13:13.240 sort of expand their uh expand their pool of writers so what did they do andrew they took a
00:13:19.000 special column written by a mask get it written by a mask very clever stuff very very deep as the
00:13:26.600 kids say it's very meta very deep stuff and i'm just going to read to you some of these lines because
00:13:31.400 again this is just an excellent piece of journalism andrew really hitting the hitting hard and really
00:13:36.280 kind of going right at the issues here starts off with this now hang on just before we get into this
00:13:40.360 as i set the stage is this written by a n95 mask is it written by a cloth mask is it written by a
00:13:47.640 gas mask do you know any identifiable details about the author uh my my my first read on it andrew
00:13:54.680 is that it's one of those uh blue medical cloth masks on the 95 mass so it really it's not up to the
00:14:00.120 real standard it's not up to the standard one of the forgotten masks this is like yesterday's
00:14:03.560 downtrodden mask completely completely terrible terrible as dr tam says it's not one of those
00:14:08.840 well-fitting medical masks it's just one of those blue random masks uh and he's feeling this mask
00:14:14.760 is feeling really left behind because did you just misgender the mask by the way do you did it tell you
00:14:19.720 it was a male no it didn't i don't think i did i don't think i did misgender it but if i did i i have
00:14:24.840 to well it could be a she i don't know if it's a he mask come on harrison be woke well i'm being safe
00:14:29.720 and i'm gonna go with they how about that we'll start with they they them is always good right right it's
00:14:34.600 just it's just a mask so we'll go with they for it and and and the the mask starts off with this
00:14:40.600 it's me your mask i'm here in between the cushions of your couch or maybe i'm under the bed it's difficult
00:14:46.040 to tell it's so dark wow just just wonderful wonderful way to start off and then it goes
00:14:50.840 on and there's some just there's some incredible incredible lines here as people continued to get
00:14:55.080 sick and die we got over that and pretty soon you wouldn't go anywhere without me we lined up
00:14:59.320 together at stores you showed me off at work we were very close very close i felt you every time
00:15:04.840 you smiled it's kind of creepy and as autumn rolled into winter you remarked more than once how i felt
00:15:10.520 a nice warm scarf a nice warm safe scarf andrew that's that's very important it wasn't just a warm
00:15:17.240 scarf it was a safe scarf around your mouth very good stuff and then of course they had to kind of the
00:15:22.600 mask sort of broke out it's it's it's medical knowledge because as we all know a very smart mask here
00:15:27.560 remember that bmj formerly british medical journal analysis last november more than 70 studies
00:15:33.960 worldwide looking at public health measures it said mask wearing accounted for a 53 reduction
00:15:39.080 in the in the incidents of covet 19 we were doing good work you and i not you know i mean 50 of them
00:15:45.000 didn't 50 of them didn't work but i guess 50 of them did work so there you go good work and also it
00:15:50.680 gets political the mask gets a little political when ontario premier doug ford said we've got to move on
00:15:56.600 that was all you needed it was the final straw without even a last kiss goodbye you discarded
00:16:01.880 me as quickly as andy threw woody into his pile of ignored toys once buzz arrived oh andrew it's a
00:16:07.960 love story between a mask and a forgotten friend a forgotten a forgotten lover in the mask just
00:16:13.480 pretty pretty mouthy mask by the way i know right i mean where does a mask get off thinking it's so
00:16:17.960 special it's just uh just a regular blue mask but look this is the kind of stuff you get when the
00:16:22.840 taxpayers fund your journalism this is the kind of quality stuff you get and i don't even know if
00:16:27.160 our ai bought friend would be able to pull up pull off something as as incredible as this andrew
00:16:32.840 yeah i wonder if like the mask is a recipient of the local journalism initiative funding or something
00:16:38.200 if the mask was if the mask was subsidized maybe this was an advertorial by the public health agency
00:16:43.000 of canada you never know well if it's not then we do have the independent press gallery to back up the
00:16:47.720 mask too if yeah a mask i will have to check if a mask has applied for accreditation with the ipg i
00:16:53.400 don't know if that's uh i don't know if we can allow a mask in well we'll have to leave that up to uh
00:16:59.240 to the experts so we'll leave that up to you guys andrew but i gotta say i mean like i said this is the
00:17:04.680 kind of stuff that that with with probably without taxpayer funding you probably would never get this is
00:17:09.640 this is a perfect example of why this sort of stuff in the ottawa citizen is very important uh
00:17:15.480 they do end up telling us who might be behind the mask at the end of the story uh the guy's name i
00:17:21.320 hate to burst our bubble here but it turns out the guy the guy might be named bruce diechman uh but
00:17:26.760 i wouldn't be bragging about that if i were you bruce no no exactly but nonetheless he well he didn't
00:17:32.840 he didn't put his name in the byline he only put it at the very bottom i wonder how many people
00:17:35.960 actually got to the bottom of that article yeah he kept up the illusion until the uh until the
00:17:40.120 bitter end all right uh uh do we have time for one more right because this one this was your baby you
00:17:45.800 wanted to do this one most certainly yet yet another example andrew of great surgery like precision when
00:17:51.720 it comes to journalism we're tackling the real issues here this is from the washington post just
00:17:56.360 take a look at this headline here shark week lacks diversity over represents men named mike scientists
00:18:03.640 say so you know these are the real issues here when the washington post is not going after
00:18:07.960 systemic racism when the washington post is not tracking down donald trump's nefarious activities
00:18:12.760 their russian connection all of that nasty stuff they're going after the shark week discovery channels
00:18:18.680 lack of diversity no joke here researchers say discoveries programming overwhelmingly featured white men
00:18:24.840 as experts while emphasizing this is a real important part here they they hid this in the headline
00:18:29.720 andrew while overemphasizing negative messages about sharks so we're being too nasty to the great
00:18:36.120 white shark we're being we're being too preferential to scientists named mike and we're being too preferential
00:18:41.640 to experts who are white males now i can absolutely understand that this is the kind of stuff jeff bezos
00:18:47.960 was hoping to uncover when he bought the washington post you know you're probably looking to get maybe
00:18:52.440 some favorable headlines for amazon but also tackling the real issues a lack of diversity on shark week
00:18:58.360 uh again let me just go back to the original point which we which we touched on at the beginning
00:19:02.760 these journalists here who are such experts who are such giants in the field andrew with us at true
00:19:07.480 north we can never reach these heights the journalist who wrote this is a stanford graduate you know
00:19:12.280 really absolutely hard-hitting stuff i i'm i it's almost it's humbling to me to read something like
00:19:18.440 this and realize i'm not even close i i maybe i missed something here are the sharks named mike like
00:19:25.800 where are all the mics coming from in shark week the mics are the white scientists on the show so
00:19:32.920 they did they did this really hard-hitting analysis stuff here they did some they did some research so
00:19:37.480 there are too many marine biologists named mike that's the complaint that's exactly it that's exactly
00:19:42.520 it so from 1988 to 2020 in a study which was completed uh by the public library of science which i think
00:19:50.200 just included watching tv uh watching endless hours of shark week content which you know is
00:19:55.880 actually a good way of getting uh of getting some grants you can you pitch something you pitch some
00:19:59.960 insane stories saying we're gonna we're gonna track down the lack of diversity on shark week and really
00:20:04.200 all you get to do is just watch tv for hours and hours on end it turns out that actually there's too
00:20:08.840 many white mike men white men named mike on the program and not enough black women and all of all of the
00:20:16.520 mike content on shark week is is nasty towards shark we're not we're not portraying sharks andrew as
00:20:21.720 these great beings of uh of oceanic art you know we're painting them as nasty scary creatures in the
00:20:29.320 depths of the oceans the the the study author's name is dave how dare you take aim at over representing
00:20:35.880 mics when your name is dave i i know andrew they uh he's like that's like the that's like one step
00:20:41.400 short of john smith and he's like oh we have too many mics here it's like dave supremacy is uh
00:20:46.360 coming to roost here my goodness even better andrew there's another study in that they sort
00:20:51.000 they source in this article and then the last name of the person who's who created this other study
00:20:56.760 his last name is white neck hey the guy's last name is white does he have a knack for being white is
00:21:04.440 that the is that is this like a big display of white shark great white privilege i don't know yeah so it's
00:21:09.800 it's it's lisa white neck and dave who are talking who are doing this deep hard-hitting analysis
00:21:16.280 on the on too many mics too many white men talking too many nasty things about sharks
00:21:21.800 i'm out i'm just doing the i'm getting the ai thing to do the show next week so yeah how about
00:21:26.040 it uh this has been another edition of fake news friday harrison faulkner you can catch him at ratioed
00:21:32.760 and you can catch me at the andrew lawton show and you can catch all of our colleagues at tnc.news
00:21:38.600 where i hope you can chip in a few bucks for the stellar news that you can't live without that you only
00:21:43.880 get here on fake news friday about you know white sharks named mike or whatever i don't know uh
00:21:49.320 donate i'm not selling it donate.tnc news support support our journalism uh have a great weekend
00:21:54.680 great weekend everyone
00:22:04.120 you
00:22:16.120 you